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Highlights for April 9
At Appomattox, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, and harassed constantly by Union cavalry, Lee had no other option.
In retreating from the Union army's Appomattox Campaign, the Army of Northern Virginia had stumbled through the Virginia countryside stripped of food and supplies. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had actually outrun Lee's army, blocking their retreat and taking 6,000 prisoners at Sayler's Creek. Desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Confederates were surrounded with no possibility of escape. On April 9, Lee sent a message to Grant announcing his willingness to surrender. The two generals met in the parlor of the Wilmer McLean home at one o'clock in the afternoon.
Lee and Grant, both holding the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican War and exchanged awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant arrived in his muddy field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword. Lee asked for the terms, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. All officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property--most important, the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee's starving men would be given Union rations.
Shushing a band that had begun to play in celebration, General Grant told his officers, "The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again." Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks, for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end.
1939 Marian Anderson sings at Lincoln Memorial
Anderson had struggled out of a childhood of poverty in South Philadelphia to
become a world-renowned classical singer, first winning acclaim in the 1920s and
touring extensively in Europe during the 1930s. By the mid-1930s
Marian Anderson was a renowned singer, her contralto voice familiar in the U.S.
and Europe through concert tours where she displayed a mastery of the classical
repertoire, opera, and spirituals. In 1935, after filling concert halls
throughout Europe, she returned to the U.S. to perform concerts around her
native country. For a concert in the nation's capital, her agent tried to book
her into Constitution Hall, at that time the largest music auditorium in
Washington. Unfortunately, Constitution Hall was owned by the
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), whose policy stipulated
that all contracts to use the hall contain a clause saying "concert by
white artists only." Because she was black, Marian Anderson was
denied the use of Constitution Hall.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who sat on the board of the DAR,
publicly resigned from the organization in protest. She approached
Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who made the grounds of the
Lincoln Memorial available to Anderson and invited her to perform
there on Easter Sunday. On April 9, 1939 more than 75,000 people,
a record audience at the time, gathered at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to hear famed African-American contralto Marian
Anderson give a free open-air concert. Millions more heard the performance by radio
broadcast. Standing near the statue of the author of the
Emancipation Proclamation, she began her performance by singing,
"My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing." Anderson's alternate performance at the Lincoln Memorial served
greatly to raise awareness of the problem of racial discrimination in America.
The DAR later changed its policy and Anderson performed many times
at Constitution Hall. Though the great Italian
conductor Arturo Toscanini told her, "Yours is a voice such as one hears
once in a hundred years," recognition came slowly for Anderson in her
native country. Even after her dramatic appearance at the Lincoln Memorial in
1939, it was not until 1955 that she became the first African-American to be
invited to perform at New York's Metropolitan Opera House where she performed the role of Ulrica in
a production of Verdi's "A Masked Ball". Three years later,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower made her an honorary delegate to the United
Nations, and in 1963 President John F. Kennedy awarded her the Presidential
Medal of Freedom. She was awarded a Congressional gold medal in 1978. Anderson died in Portland, Oregon, on April 8, 1993.
1959 - NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts
On April 9, 1959, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) introduces America's first astronauts to the press: Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., and Donald Slayton. The seven men, all military test pilots, were carefully selected from a group of 32 candidates to take part in Project Mercury, America's first manned space program. NASA planned to begin manned orbital flights in 1961.
On October 4, 1957, the USSR scored the first victory of the "space race" when it successfully launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into Earth's orbit. In response, the United States consolidated its various military and civilian space efforts into NASA, which dedicated itself to beating the Soviets to manned space flight. In January 1959, NASA began the astronaut selection procedure, screening the records of 508 military test pilots and choosing 110 candidates. This number was arbitrarily divided into three groups, and the first two groups reported to Washington. Because of the high rate of volunteering, the third group was eliminated. Of the 62 pilots who volunteered, six were found to have grown too tall since their last medical examination. An initial battery of written tests, interviews, and medical history reviews further reduced the number of candidates to 36. After learning of the extreme physical and mental tests planned for them, four of these men dropped out.
The final 32 candidates traveled to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they underwent exhaustive medical and psychological examinations. The men proved so healthy, however, that only one candidate was eliminated. The remaining 31 candidates then traveled to the Wright Aeromedical Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, where they underwent the most grueling part of the selection process. For six days and three nights, the men were subjected to various tortures that tested their tolerance of physical and psychological stress. Among other tests, the candidates were forced to spend an hour in a pressure chamber that simulated an altitude of 65,000 feet, and two hours in a chamber that was heated to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. At the end of one week, 18 candidates remained. From among these men, the selection committee was to choose six based on interviews, but seven candidates were so strong they ended up settling on that number.
After they were announced, the "Mercury Seven" became overnight celebrities. The Mercury Project suffered some early setbacks, however, and on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in the world's first manned space flight. Less than one month later, on May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard was successfully launched into space on a suborbital flight. On February 20, 1962, in a major step for the U.S. space program, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. NASA continued to trail the Soviets in space achievements until the late 1960s, when NASA's Apollo program put the first men on the moon and safely returned them to Earth. Donald Slayton, who was grounded in the early 1960s because of a previously undiscovered heart condition, became the last of the Mercury Seven to travel into space when he took part in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in July 1975. The joint U.S.-Soviet mission was aimed at developing space rescue capabilities.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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